Every bear for himself. God against all.

Bonnie, Allie and I went to a roof top bar near Columbia.  It was hot a humid, like every day that summer.  I’d been drinking for a few weeks straight, mostly beer, but still, it was really starting to catch up with me.  A thick layer of rubbery fat had accumulated around my torso.

The bar tender ignored me but got Bonnie and Allie their drinks immediately.  They both had margaritas.  After a few rounds we ran into another group of CPC kids.  One of them was this big tall republican from Texas named Ben, heir to the Gibson dildo fortune.  He was surrounded by a couple of mustachioed girls, also from the course. 

“You guys got any X?”  He asked the group.

Allie and Bonnie refused to look at him.  I gave him Patches’ phone number and told him to ask for Fatsy Pope.  He thanked me and disappeared into the crowd, a girl on either arm.  I grinned.  I couldn’t help it.  I thought I’d done something clever and funny.  When I turned back, Bonnie and Allie were staring at me.

“What the fuck was that?”

I felt like a fool and excused myself to get another drink.  I didn’t know what I was doing in this place.  I felt like a fraud and in most respects I was one.  Some people just don’t belong anywhere.  

Somehow I got drunk that night.  I left the bar alone and walked up Amsterdam and into Washington Heights.  I just walked and walked.  It was the only thing I liked doing, walking.  At 170th st. I turned right and headed into an old park.  It was dark now and late.  The insects were loud, louder than anything I’d ever heard and they were all screaming in one rythm.  I sat down.  My head was spinning.  From the darkness I heard someone shout “faggot” over and over again.